1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a print control apparatus, a print control method, and a storage medium. More particularly, the invention relates to a print control apparatus, a print control method, and a storage medium which are suitable in case of performing a printing such that a plurality of pages are reduced and arranged in one page in a system comprising an information processing apparatus such as a personal computer or the like and an output apparatus such as a printer or the like.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, in an output apparatus (hereinafter, also referred to as a printer) such as a printer or the like, there is an output apparatus having a function to perform a printing such that a plurality of pages based on print data transmitted from an information processing apparatus to which the output apparatus is connected are reduced and arranged into one page, namely, a function to perform what is called an N-up printing. The N-up printing function is a function prepared for the printer for the purpose of a draft printing, a saving of papers, or the like.
On the other hand, in the output apparatus, there is an output apparatus having a function to perform a face-down paper delivery which is a general operation in a laser beam printer or the like or an output apparatus having a function to perform a face-up paper delivery which is a general operation in an ink jet printer, a copying apparatus, or the like. In case of the face-down paper delivery, output papers are aligned in accordance with the page order based on the print data received from the information processing apparatus. However, in case of the face-up paper delivery, an output result in which the page based on the print data received lastly from the information processing apparatus is arranged at the top position is obtained.
Therefore, as a method of setting the page order to the normal order in case of the face-up paper delivery, when the print data is transmitted from the information processing apparatus, a method of transmitting in accordance with the reverse page order is used. Although a method of outputting the print data in accordance with the reverse page order on the output apparatus side is also considered, in this case, a memory or a disk to temporarily spool the print data of all of the pages included in a job into the output apparatus is necessary or it is necessary to prepare an apparatus to rearrange the printed papers in accordance with the reverse order in the output apparatus. However, since a large amount of costs are required for this purpose, it is actually a general way to use the method of transmitting the print data in accordance with the reverse order from the information processing apparatus.
However, the above conventional technique has the following problems. That is, as mentioned above, hitherto, the reverse order printing has been performed from an application to the printer having the function to perform the face-up paper delivery. However, if the N-up printing function of the printer is further used, in the printer, N pages from the head page based on the print data received from the application are reduced and arranged into one page. Therefore, there is a problem such that a combination of the pages which are reduced and arranged in each page differs from that in case of the normal order. There is also a problem such that the arranging order of the pages which are reduced and arranged in each page differs from that in case of the normal order.
The invention is made in consideration of the above problems and it is an object to provide a device such that even in case of performing a face-up paper delivery in a page printer, namely, even in case of performing a reverse order printing, an N-up output result can be obtained in accordance with a combination of pages similar to that in the normal order printing and in accordance with a page arranging order similar to that in the normal order printing.
Another object of the invention is to provide a device such that when an instruction to designate both of a reverse order printing and an N-up printing is received from the user, an information processing apparatus such as a host or the like forms print data to be N-up outputted in accordance with a page arranging order similar to the normal order printing and can output the modified print data to a printing apparatus.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a device such that the reverse order printing and the N-up printing can be designated without newly producing a portion to form a PDL (Page Description Language) from a print information (for example, DDI: Device Driver Interface) function generated from a printer driver portion corresponding to a printer which does not have the conventional N-up printing function, namely, from a graphic engine (for instance, GDI: Graphical Device Interface), and an output result can be obtained in accordance with a page arranging order similar to that of the normal order printing.
To accomplish the above objects, according to the invention, there is provided a print control apparatus having a reduction arrangement printing function for reducing, arranging, and printing a plurality of pages into one page, comprising: specifying means for specifying a logical page which is arranged onto a physical page in case of performing the reduction arrangement printing and the reverse order printing; inserting means for inserting blank logical pages into the remaining portions in the case where the number of logical pages does not reach the upper limit in which they can be arranged onto the physical page; and print control means for controlling so as to arrange a plurality of logical pages including the blank logical pages onto the physical page and to print.
According to the invention, the apparatus further comprises forming means for forming drawing data of one page by reducing drawing data of the plurality of logical pages including the blank logical pages, and the print control means controls so as to arrange the drawing data of one page onto one physical page and to print.
According to the invention, the logical page is an ordinary page which is handled in the application, and the physical page is a page which includes a plurality of reduced pages and is actually printed and outputted.
According to the invention, the reverse order printing denotes that the logical pages are arranged onto the physical page in accordance with the order from the small page number and the physical pages are reversely arranged from the last page and are printed.
The invention can be applied to a system such that print data is transmitted from an upper apparatus such as a computer or the like to a printing apparatus such as a printer or the like and is printed.
The invention further comprises: preserving means for temporarily preserving the data in an intermediate code format different from that of the print data; and forming means for forming the print data on the basis of the data temporarily stored.
According to the invention, there is provided a print control apparatus for outputting print data including at least one physical page in which a plurality of logical pages are reduced and arranged, comprising: dispatcher means for receiving common print information which is formed on the basis of drawing data formed by an arbitrary application from drawing means depending on an OS; intermediate data converting means for converting the print information received by the dispatcher means into intermediate data and storing the intermediate data into spool means; designating means for designating a reverse order printing and the reduction arrangement of the logical pages; specifying means for specifying the logical pages which are arranged onto the physical page in the case where the reverse order printing and the reduction arrangement are designated by the designating means; inserting means for inserting blank logical pages into the remaining portions in the case where the number of logical pages does not reach an upper limit in which they can be arranged on the physical page; modifying means for forming intermediate data in which a plurality of logical pages including the blank logical pages are arranged on the physical page from the intermediate data stored in the spool means and generating the formed intermediate data to the drawing means in the drawing data format; and print data forming means for converting the print information received by the dispatcher means into print data constructed by a control command and outputting the print data to an external apparatus.
According to the invention, the drawing data is a GDI (Graphical Device Interface).
According to the invention, the print information is a DDI (Device Driver Interface).
According to the invention, the print data is a page description language.